


Just A Girl

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1940s, Alternate Universe, Angst, Developing Relationship, F/M, Male-Female Friendship, Romance, Skoulson RomFest 2k15 REDUX, skoulsonfest2k15redux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 03:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4419389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1943 and Skye - orphan, journalist, way too skinny for a fight - decides to join the Super Soldier program.</p><p>(Skoulson Captain America AU with Skye as Steve, Coulson as Peggy and Mike Peterson as Bucky)</p><p>Written for the Skoulson RomFest 2k15 Redux - Promt: AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just A Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts).



Bare-knuckled and panting, girls can never win fights, she should have learned that by now. That's the thing about Skye, she never really learns. In winter the blood congeals over her bruised fingers, and winters in this city are cold, specially in the middle of a war.

"Are you going to pick a fight with every guy in Hell's Kitchen?" Mike says, but he's smiling, in his new uniform, grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her up. "We might have to move."

But he never tells her not to fight; he just patches her up every time, Mike has watched bruises form and fade away over and again since they were in the orphanage. He knows Skye can stop fighting no more than she can stop breathing.

 

 

Of course Mike helps her. Mike always helps her. Skye is not particularly manly, particularly unfemenine, the reason why she keeps to impossibly pass the army test escapes Mike – unless it's to scream at the people who throw her out of the recruitment places. "There'll come a time when they let the girls in the army," she tells him afterwards. "The world is just spinning a bit slower than it should." Mike sort of agrees – though secretly glad his best friend doesn't have to go to war – for the world has always fallen a bit behind Skye and her speed.

 

 

"Oh come on, you should at least get a night off."

It's Mike's last night in New York. She's trying very hard not to think about that.

"Tony Stark is going to be there," she says, taking out her reporter's notebook. "Maybe I can get a scoop."

He knows Skye has been on shaky ground, profesionally (oh well, when wasn't she?), even since the Daily Worker gave her the sack for opposing the Stalin-Hitler pact, and now she's freelancing for _PM_.

"I'm leaving tomorrow, let's have a last night out on the town. I will find you a couple of fellas."

"A couple? I would settle for one."

Mike snorts. Nothing good ever comes of that. And in annoying big brother fashion Mike is almost glad for it. Skye has been in love only once in her life – for about three weeks, with a tall boxer with a southern drawl who broke her heart by taking money for throwing fights. Mike says he is in no rush to see her go through that stuff again.

"Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"You know you can't die in Europe, right?" she tells him. Mike looks at her like she's still the ten year old kid he used to save from the bullies. "If you do no one is going to be here to stop me from doing stupid stuff."

"Since when have I been able to _stop_ you from doing anything?"

Skye smiles at him when they hug goodbye. He's right – she never needed a big brother. She needed a partner in crime.

 

 

She doesn't get a scoop from Tony Stark.

But there's an Army recruitment booth inside the Expo.

 

 

"Why do you want to get killed so badly?" the man with the eyepatch asks.

Busted, Skye thinks. Not that she hoped to pass as a guy. But she had to try – _again_.

"What?"

She knows this is illegal. Maybe she can charm her way out of trouble. That normally works. Bat her pretty eyes at some guy. But this man looks stern, unmoving, as he examines Skye's fake file, contructed out of fantasies and half-truths. She's not a boy. But her father was a doctor and her mother helped him and they are both dead. That part is all true.

"Why do you want to go to war and get killed so badly?" he repeats.

Skye looks down. Mike thinks she has something to prove but he is wrong. She remembers the morning the Warsaw pictures arrived at the newspaper. 

"I don't want to get killed," she says. "I just really don't like Nazis."

"You could help in other ways. Women are substancial to the war effort."

Skye snorts. That's what the pamphlets say. "Work in factories and sell bonds? That's all fine, peope who do that should be admired, but I don't see why my friends have to risk their lives and I can't."

"That's the way of the world," the man says, though it doesn't sound like he likes it very much. "You have to live in it, Miss Skye, just like the rest of us."

"No, I don't."

The man fixes her a look. Skye swears he looks amused.

"Maybe you don't," he says. "In that case – I have a proposal for you."

 

 

They explain it to her. Fury. A Colonel called Hill. A man called Coulson who looks a bit too old for his low rank. A doctor called Jemma Simmons. Something called _Super Serum_ , the doctor says with shining pride. It might just be the thing that wins the war. What a scoop, Skye thinks, still looking at the world like a journalist. The Army and their super secret experiments.

"I thought this occult stuff was more to Hitler's taste."

"Nothing occult about it!" Jemma protests. "It's science. Just because we don't understand something –"

"Yeah, I get it."

Hill glares at her. Soldiers don't ask this many question. Skye can play that role, if that's what it takes.

"She's too skinny," Hill tells Fury, but well within Skye's earshot.

 

 

Camp Lehigh is a lot like St Agnes. Except they're all guys and none of them is Mike.

 

 

The other "candidates" are men, strong and tall and all white. American Dreams personified.

What the hell am I doing here? Skye thinks when she sees the size and skills of someone like Private Ward, everybody's favorite for the privilege of becoming America's first supersoldier. Everybody's except Fury. Hill disapproves of everybody, including her. Coulson seems neutral about it. A little more on her side after they both go for a dud grenade Fury throws between the company – as a test? Skye doesn't know what goes on in that man's head – and Skye thoroughly beats Coulson to it. 

"Not bad, rookie," Ward tells her after that little stunt, a new interest for her written all over his too-handsome face. 

She keeps thinking Mike would probably have yelled at her for throwing her body at a grenade. Or not yelled, but widened his eyes at her and kept very quiet, which is worse.

 

 

Finally they decide on her.

Fury declassifies the mission papers so Skye knows what she's up against. Hydra wasn't just a paranoid rumor she heard in the reporter's bullpen. A man named Werner Reinhardt and his crazy experiments. They show her the pictures – people turned to stone in a matter of seconds.

"What the hell did I sign up for?" he asks Fury.

The man doesn't answer. He's not big on sharing.

Coulson acts like her own personal bodyguard. Apparently Fury is not big on the trust either – he thinks there's a traitor in the team and wants to keep Skye protected – and he needs his one good eye to keep close to Skye at all times. She doesn't mind. Coulson's kind of a lackey, but he's a good man and he's nice to her. 

"Don't you want to ask?" Skye says the first time they are alone.

"Ask what?"

"Why a girl like me would want to be in the Army?"

"I have my own reasons for being in this project," Coulson says. "I don't imagine yours are less valid than mine. And no one has asked for mine?"

That's cause you're a guy, Skye thinks.

She hasn't thought about it, why is he here. She thought Coulson was just Fury's boy. She didn't imagine there was more to it. But he does look like someone who has no life outside of it, and Skye can relate. What life can a girl like her have out there, anyway?

"At least here I have a chance to do something," she tells him, not sure if she's explaining it well. "It's not like I'm the kind of girl who stays home cooking dinner for her fella."

"No, I don't imagine you are," he says, cryptically. "Maybe the fella should be cooking dinner for you instead."

She laughs. That's the queerest thing anyone has said to her yet. Including all the stuff about the Super Serum.

"Wouldn't that be grand, Mr Coulson?"

"Who knows? Maybe someday the world will show you something new."

 

 

She gets fidgety the night before.

Why her? She's a nobody. Just a reject from the streets of Hell's Kitchen.

And Hill is right, she _is_ skinny. She's lost every fight she's ever been in. Fury points out that it's never stopped her from fighting again.

"Why me? I'm just a girl. Not a soldier."

"We have enough soldiers," Fury tells her. "Now we need heroes." 

He takes out a bottle of scotch.

"Thank you, sir, but I can't drink before the procedure."

"Oh no," he tells her. "This isn't for you."

 

 

Coulson looks paler than usual when they arrive at the super secret facility in Brooklyn.

"Are you worried about me?" she asks, amused. She thought he was supposed to be a hardass.

"You can still say no," he reminds her. "At any point."

She hears the jangling of medals. General shifting on their feet, nervous, appalled, when they discover they have spent the country's money on _this_ , this lanky half-Chinese girl from a dirty backstreet. Skye feels like she's back at the orphanage meeting prospective foster parents, meeting disapproving eyes.

She feels a hand on her shoulder.

Fury.

That twinkle in his eye.

"Ready?"

As much as she's going to be.

"That wasn't that bad," Skye says when the needle goes in.

"That was just anaesthetic," Simmons tells her with an apologetic look on her face. She squuezes her hand like an old friend.

 

 

Rebirth is not easy. Skye does not feel like she's shedding her old skin. More like she's coming out of a coccoon, really.

"How do you feel?" Fury asks.

Skye looks down at her hands.

" _Powerful_ ," she says.

 

 

The traitor betrays. That's the rule of the universe. Nick Fury, rewarded a couple of bullets in his body for his faith in heroes. A speeding car towards Coulson. "Sorry," Skye says as she pushes him out of the way, pistol well-aimed and a complete disregard for his own life. Is Fury dead? She couldn't tell. She doesn't want anyone else around her hurt. She runs and she runs.

The water falling off her hair, her knees scraping the pavement of the docks. She's pretty sure she's been shot. She's pretty sure getting shot is not such a big deal in her new body.

"Cut off one head and two more will grow," Ward says, swallowing the cyanide pill.

Mysterious Hero in the Docks? the headlines say, Skye's picture, barefooted and in wet clothes, everywhere.

 

 

"Of course Fury's not dead," Coulson tells her, sitting with her as Simmons draws tube after tube of her now-precious blood. He sounds offended at the idea. "He's a tough one. But he'll be out of circulation for a while. It's up to us to pick up the slack."

"With all due respect," Hill is saying, which Skye doesn't understand, because she outranks both her and Coulson. And the whole room. "I asked for an Army. This is just an experiment. And if we can't replicate it..."

 

 

The headlines say _Captain America_ and a Senator calls her to his office, shows her the first issue of the Captain America comics, featuring the Howling Commandos. He talks about movies – they'd have to get someone else to play her, _you understand_ but Skye thinks she's missing something. Now the tour, the tour she can do. How does she feel about helping her country in the most important battlefield of the war? That's all she's ever wanted but – 

Skye skims through the comic. Her body proportions are all wrong and there's something strange about her eyes.

"Why am I white in this?"

 

 

The last time she sees Coulson before leaving on tour – she's scheduled to punch fake!Hitler and sing songs to sell bonds in at least twenty-five cities, depending on her initial success – he and Simmons are packing up the Brooklyn lab.

"I've seen the comic," Coulson says, like he's about to give her his condolences.

"Yes, it's pretty bad."

"I'm sorry, Skye."

She looks at him with some curiosity. "You know _Skye_ is not my real name, right?"

Coulson holds up issue #1 of _The Beautiful Captain America and Her Howling Commandos_. She can't believe he went and bought one for himself.

"Captain Johnson doesn't quite have the same ring," he comments.

The lights go out on the lab.

"So you're leaving, uh?"

Coulson nods. "Hill is taking me and Simmons to Europe. See if we can track down Reinhardt."

"All my best boys leave me to go to the front," she says, chuckling.

"You'll be all right," Coulson says, looking at her arm, then touching it lightly. "If someone can figure out all this, it's you."

Suddenly she feels like hugging him.

 

 

A couple of months later she's finally sent to Europe. Finally the front. Finally she's going to be among fellow soldier, helping out in a real war.

The crowd cheers for her to strip, of course.

The crowd cheers "Captain, show us your America."

Skye has a lot of experience biting back tears of shame. They think war is tough? Try the orphanage.

 

 

"You're still writing news items?" Coulson asks her, when he catches her taking quick mood impressions in her notebook. She tried to interview a couple of soldiers – maybe she could write a book, since it's unlikely _The Daily Worker_ will buy articles from someone literally wrapped in the flag of the capitalist empire.

The crappy day she's having but she's happy to see Coulson. It feels like New Jersey was a million years ago. Skye misses it. It was simpler. 

"I'm a journalist," she tells him. She sees him staring at her uniform. "Yeah. It's even worse than the comics. All I wanted to do what to come here to the front and now that I'm here... I'm wearing this."

"I like the shield," he says.

"What about you? You look rough."

Coulson looks around. Skye thought Italy was warmer.

"I'm too old to be a soldier," he says.

 

 

 _Mike_ , she thinks, when the injured start coming and she can't find the familiar face.

"What happened to the 107th?"

"I don't have time for you, Captain," Colonel Hill says, as welcoming as ever.

Coulson gives him an amused look, encouraging her to press on.

"I just need one name. Private Michael Peterson."

Hill starts leafing through her files, giving both of them a sideways look. "You were supposed to keep her away from the front line, Coulson. The army doesn't have time for your crushes."

Skye looks at Coulson. He still looks amused.

"What was that name, Skye?" he asks, helful.

"Mike Peterson," Skye repeats.

"Name rings a bell," Hill says. "There are over a hundred men held hostage at Reinhardt's base."

Hostage. Okay, okay, she calms down. Hostage is not dead yet. Mike could be alive. 

"So what's the plan?" Skye asks. "How do we rescue them?"

She notices Coulson looking at the ground when she says that.

"Rescue?" Hill says. "Hydra has us outgunned and outnumbered. I'm not going to sacrifice more men in a suicide mission."

Skye is about to say something else but she stops herself when she sees Maria Hill's strangely kind, tired expression.

"Look, Skye, I know you're more than just a chorus girl, so I hope you understand the kind of sacrifices we have to make. It's called winning a war."

"I understand," Skye says, knowing she can't get anyone else in trouble. "Thank you, Colonel."

 

 

She's good at this. Before she was Captain America she was this. Slipping in and out of places unnoticed. It's just like skipping the orphanage's curfew.

"You're about to do something stupid," Coulson says when he follows her into the tent and sees her grabbing her shield and a bomber's leather jacket.

"You sound like Mike."

"Are you sure he'd want you risking your life to find him?"

He watches Skye steal a handgun, unfazed.

"He didn't even want me in the Army," Skye says fondly, remembering Mike's last night on the town with her. "But I try not to hold that against him."

Coulson cuts in front of her as she is about to exit the tent, lifting one hand to stop her. "Well, then try not to hold it against me when I offer to help you find him."

" _Help_ me?"

"I know where we can find a plane. Or where you planning on walking to Austria?"

He's not trying to stop her. He'd get courtmartialed for that. Nevermind that Coulson, as per Fury's instructions, is not officially part of the Army, he's working in the shadows to keep the light alive. They'd eat him alive if they found out he helped Captain America walk into her doom.

"Why are you helping me?" she aks.

He looks at her clothes.

"I think Hill is right," he says, "I think you're meant for better things than _Zeigfeld Follies of 1944_."

 

 

Crossing enemy airspace is the scariest thing she's had to do so far. She has to say, she misses New York.

Their pilot looks like she's enjoying it, though. There's a maniac enemy coming off her every time a German plane shoots at them or passes a little too close. Skye wants to ask where did they find this madwoman.

"This is May," Coulson says. "She's an old friend and the best pilot I know. You can trust her."

The woman gives Skye an appraising look. "I've seen what you can do," she says. "You need training."

"Is that an offer?" Skye asks.

The woman smirks at her, turning around and focusing on the flight. Coulson says they'll talk about that later. Training. The future of Captain America. Skye wonders if he says that to give her courage – because it's really unlikely that he thinks she'll survive. She knows the odds. It doesn't matter. Mike would do exactly the same for her, even without super-powers, so she really has no excuse here.

"One minute to the drop zone," May tells them.

Skye realizes this is her first jump. It's bound to be a lot different from all the preparation at Camp Lehigh.

"I could go with you," Coulson tells her, urgently, wrapping a gentle hand around her arm for a moment. "There's another chute here."

Skye looks at him, smiling. He is really is nice. She hopes this is not the last time they ever speak.

She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, soldier. I outrank you."

 

 

"Are they sending in girls now?" a guy with a British accent says from one of the cells.

Skye doesn't have the time. She needs to find Mike. But she can't leave all these men behind. She runs through the cells in search of a face she knows she can trust.

"What's your name?" she asks a tall, handsome corporal.

"Corporal Triplett," he says. "And you're Captain America." He sounds in awe rather than mocing her.

"What gave me away? The shield, the suit or the muscles?" she jokes.

 

 

"Mike, Mike," she calls. "You're alive."

He looks like death.

Mike opens his eyes.

"Skye? Are you wearing _thighs_?"

She slips her arm under his shoulder. "Oh shut up."

 

 

She's never been in the presence of evil before.

"We are alike, Captain," Reinhardt tells her across a metal bridge, while Mike finds a way to get them both out of here without falling to their deaths. "We've left humanity behind."

Skye remembers what Coulson told her about Reinhardt's experiments, the films they had found in one of the taken Hydra bases. Torture of women and children, just to try to replicate the effects of the serum. Her stomach sinks thinking about what this monster might have done to Mike.

He holds out the object Skye recognizes from Fury's reports. "Don't you want to know if you're special?"

The regiment has been rescued. She got Mike back. She's not about to be tricked by a big fat freaking Nazi now, is she.

"Nope," she says, and she grabs Mike and runs away.

 

 

"We though you were dead," Hill tells her when she comes back with the rest of the 107th. She sounds a bit disappointed, but then there's a spark in her eye that looks almost like pride.

Skye doesn't push it, she plays the bashful soldier in front of her.

"She's right," Coulson comments. "Everybody thought you weren't coming back."

"I guess I'm full of surprises," she tells him.

He shakes his head. "No, I knew you were coming back."

Mike slips his arm around her shoulders, like he used to do when she was a kid. She's bruised and dirty-faced just like when she was a kid. "Let's hear it for Captain America!" he shouts and the rest of the soldiers follow his lead.

For the first time ever the name doesn't sound like a joke.

 

London mean warm bars and Gracie Fields tunes. 

"I have a tab here," Private Hunter says, ushering her inside, leading their merry band.

"Don't you have a tab _everywhere_?"

"Don't listen to Mack, Miss America."

" _Captain_ America."

Hill gave them the night off, her new team – "Don't you have a team in those Captain America comics?" Trip asked, "What are we called?". The Howling Commandos. Not just Mike. The guys she rescued in Italy, Trip, Mack and Hunter. Fury has sent Jemma to Europe as well. Her old Cambridge rival, a prodigy named Leo Fitz. Hunter's ex-wife Bobbi, come back from her undercover mission in Berlin, an expert in all things Hydra. Even May has begrudgingly accepted to help Skye make better use of her powers. Not a bad line-up.

"Strength without control means nothing," May tells her.

Skye smiles fondly at the older woman.

"May, you can tell me all this tomorrow at five, I promise," she says. "Now will you let me buy you a drink?"

May narrows her eyes at her. "Only if it's a double."

 

 

Later she will think of her days in London as tranquil, despite the rush of meetings and operation plans and the training with May first thing in the mornings and the weapons tests and Simmons moving heaven and earth to come up with an unbreakable alloy for her new shield.

"Can we paint it blue, red and white?" Skye asks her and Fitz.

"A bit tacky, don't you think?" Jemma grimaces.

"I don't know. I liked my old shield."

"I've made some alterations to the design," Coulson says about her uniform. "It's better now."

Despite the bombs, despite the hard work, London feels almost like a quiet holiday. But Skye gets itchy soon. She finds it hard to stand still when she knows there are a dozen Hydra bases out there, and Reinhardt is ready to experiment on more people. Fitz says that their technology is advancing at a worringly speed. Mike smiles at her reasoning, commenting she never needed an excuse to get itchy before. This is not running away, Skye thinks, because London and these people, this mission, feels like home.

"Hill thinks we should concentrate on the protecting the population here," May says.

"And Fury? What does he think?" she asks.

"He leaves that up to us," Bobbi replies.

Skye guesses she's outvoted on this. "Mmm."

The things she saw in that Hydra facility in Italy. How can she explain of the danger Reinhardt and his followers pose?

"And what do _you_ want to do, Captain?" Coulson asks.

She looks at her team.

"We're gonna cut all of Hydra's heads off."

 

 

It's a crazy plan, but it's not by far the worst idea she's ever had. Mike, of all people should know that.

"What do you say?" she asks, as they are in the bar, drinking aside from the rest of the soldiers. Everyone else has said yes (even Hill ended up giving the seal of approval, commenting something about "one more suicide mission" not making much of a difference). Skye doesn't know why she is so nervous about Mike's answer.

"Follow Captain America?" Mike shakes his head. "Don't get me wrong, she seems like a really nice lady. But I already promised some foolish girl from my neighborhood who was always picking fights that I'd always follow her."

Skye rolls her eyes.

They clink glasses over it like a couple of geeks.

It's a bit like the night of the Expo, except they have more people around and this time they will be fighting side by side. This time is not about Skye losing Mike. 

"No, it's about getting killed together," Mike points out.

"Come on, Mike, if you didn't know I was going to get you killed already..."

"Oh yeah I always knew. You were six. The pier incident, remember?"

Skye laughs.

"Excuse me," a voice says behind them.

They turn around. Coulson has come to spread word of the mission, an early start for Autria tomorrow. He looks all dashing in his gala uniform. Skye raises a pleased eyebrow when she sees him.

"Captain?"

"Mr Coulson?"

"Ready for the journey tomorrow?" he asks.

"Ready for _anything_ ," she replies, the implication unmistakable.

Coulson nods, saluting her as he ignores the rest of the people in the bar on his way out.

"I see," Mike says, teasing her when Coulson leaves. "Isn't he a bit too old–?"

"Oh shut up, Mike," she says. "He's a nice guy. Okay?"

"I thought you said those only existed in the movies," her friend keeps on teasing.

"I'm your superior now. I can officially order you to shut up."

Mike laughs. "Who ever thought giving you the rank of Captain was a good idea?"

"The United States Government, apparently."

 

 

He does that, Mike does. He keeps following her into foolish things. He followed her when she was nine and thought it was unfair that the nuns at St Agnes would leave "bad girls and boys" without dinner and she convinced Mike to break into the pantry with her. He followed her when she organized a neighborhood campaign against Lindbergh getting elected. He kept following her into backalley fights she knew she couldn't win. Now she looks like she could win any fight and Mike still follows her.

 

 

Then Mike falls.

Europe is a lot colder than she had imagined, when she signed up.

Colder than Hell's Kitchen in winter, though she still has congealed blood all on her hands when it's all over.

 

 

She should be flattered, Hydra wouldn't have set up the train trap if they didn't consider "Captain America" to be a threat.

That night after Mike falls they arrive back in London to regroup and she tries to drink herself into a good cry. Skye has always had trouble crying, when the truth is she has needed it sometimes.

The bar is gone, bombed out.

The piano where Mack and Fitz used to play drunken four-handed pieces is gutted, lying on the floor in shreds like a skinned animal.

London doesn't really look the same anymore, not after... Skye finds a bottle still intact on the shelves and pulls up a chair. She knows there are people looking for her. She should be back at the base. Bobbi is interrogating Reinhardt's minions right now.

Coulson finds her, eventually. She's not sure if someone sends him, or if he has come of his own volition. You never know with Coulson.

"I don't remember my parents," she tells him. "They were doctors. Well, my father was. My mother was a student. I don't even remember their funerals. All I remember it's the orphanage. That's the only home I've ever known. I would get into fights with other kids every day. But there was this older boy there, he would always have my back."

"Mike?" Coulson asks.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Mike."

"And he had you," Coulson says. A weird thing to say because what has she ever done for Michael Peterson except getting him killed like they both knew? Coulson talks on: "He made this choice. Don't take that away from him by believing it's your responsibility alone."

Coulson holds her hand in his, threading their fingers together.

Skye gets the feeling he had been wanting to do that for a long time. Since that morning in the secret Brooklyn base, probably. Since before she changed.

She kisses him then, sliding her tongue into his mouth, not like in the movies, her grief melting into desperation.

Coulson has been here, by her side, so quietly, all this time. She gets it now. It's him, it's always been him.

But he pulls back, breaking the kiss. "You're mourning and drunk."

She looks down at her glass. It's not even the right glass for whisky. She wouldn't have known that, it only goes to show she spends too much time listening to Private Hunter.

"Actually, no, I'm not. Simmons told me I can't get drunk now," she explains. "My new metabolism."

She snorts. She's never been much of a drinker and she never though she'd miss the possibility. For all that she's gained since she became Captain America she keeps losing things.

Coulson takes the glass from her and sets it down on the table.

"I'm an old fashioned guy," he tells her. Like it's some big revelation. "I want to take you out first. And maybe, if you'd like, I'll cook dinner for you. Maybe after defeating Hydra?"

He touches her cheek, her chin, grabbing her gently like Humphrey Bogart does in his pictures.

Skye feels it's unfair to be making plans for the future when Mike is dead, his body covered in snow in some Swiss mountain. Yeah, it's unfair but she can help it.

She smiles weakly at Coulson. "I like that plan, soldier."

 

 

They take out Hydra's bases, one by one. While they allies defeat Hitler, Captain America keeps Hydra against the ropes. The cost, though: Coulson loses his hand and Trip his life trying to stop Reinhardt's experiments with out-of-this-world matter.

Skye can put two and two together: her parents, Mike, Trip. 

"Wherever I go, death follows."

Then so be it. Death will follow her straight to Reinhardt's door.

 

 

There's blood in her mouth. She wipes it off. There's blood on her kunckles. It's hers. 

She chuckles when Reinhardt's weapon doesn't work on her, the crystals which he's used to murder hundreds harmless to her.

"What makes you so special?" he asks.

Skye lifts her head and smirks. "Nothing. I'm just a girl."

 

 

She should have asked May for some flying lessons, that could have saved her life. At least she knows enough to put the plane down where it can't hurt more people.

"We're contacting May right now," Coulson tells her through the plane's radio. "She'll tell you what to do."

"There's no time," Skye says. "I have to put it in the ice. We can risk Reinhardt's crystals ending up in a populated area."

Coulson says nothing, which means he's agreeing with her, which means he doesn't want to.

Skye looks behind her. There's no remains of Reinhardt's body, turned to stone by his own weapon. "Damnit, Skye," she hears Coulson mutter through the comms.

She smiles, imagining his face right now. 

"You know that's not my real name."

"I'll call you however the hell you want, _Miss Johnson_ ," he says. "Just – come back."

"I might be a little late for that date you wanted, though," she tells him.

"It's okay. I will wait," Coulson says, his voice getting calmer and quieter now. "How about next Saturday?"

"Yeah, I don't have any imminent plans," she says. Other than dying. It's okay, she thinks. Her parents died curing people. Mike died saving her. Trip died saving a whole city. It's only fair, it's okay. "Tell me about it."

"Our date?" Coulson asks.

"Yeah, how's it going to be? I've never been to a proper date."

"It's Saturday, I'll take you to the local market so we can pick up the food for dinner. I'll drive you around my neighborhood. You haven't seen my car yet, it's a really pretty car, Skye. I– I have a flat on the West Side. It's not much but it's nice. We'll go back there and you can tell me all about the fights you lost when you were at the orphanage, while I cook for you. You might have to help me cook now, but we'll manage. I don't have a living room so we'll have to eat in my kitchen. But I have a record player, I can play Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman for you. Would you like that?"

She would want him to go on talking forever.

The plane starts nosediving.

"Will you do all that for me?" she asks.

"Of course." There's a beat. There's too much to say. She can't start. Coulson can't seem to either. She hears him draw a long breath. "Skye–"

Then there's only the cold. 

 

 

_His ending is not your ending._

 

 

She wakes up in what seems to be a hospital room. The radio hums next to her. There's warm light . A window. The city is all noise and life outside. Life. She's alive. She feels like crap, though. For all her super strength she somehow can't shake the cold in her bones.

"Give it a moment," Coulson tells her.

Coulson. When she wakes up he's there, by the bedside. Of course. Her best boy. He turns off the radio.

"We had to defrost you. I imagine is not a pleasant feeling to wake up to," he says.

There's a disbelieving smile at the corner of his mouth, like Skye is some sort of miracle he can't stop looking at, at the same time like he's a bit blinded by it. He's the first fella who has ever looked at her like that.

"Were you listening to baseball?" she asks. Coulson can see her making the calculations in her head. "How long –?"

"A couple of months."

She sits up in bed. "A couple of _months_?"

"We had to search every inch of ice in Alaska," he explains. "Fury wouldn't stop looking. Moved heaven and earth until he found the debris."

"And you?" Skye asks.

Coulson draws a breath. "I wouldn't have stop looking. Ever."

They look at each other, unsure how to continue. She had wanted to say so much to him when her plane went down, and now she doesn't know where to start.

"I'm sorry I'm late for our date," she tells him. "I really wanted to have that dinner with you."

He touches her hand.

"That's fine. We have all the time in the world."

 

 

"Captain America Comes Home" the headlines say the next day. 

And Skye thinks, _Yes, she did_.


End file.
